


The Cost of Emotion

by alpha_exodus



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, Meta, Rare Pairings, johnson is sad, yeahhh there's not much to say about this haha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 21:24:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7861636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpha_exodus/pseuds/alpha_exodus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Bitty doesn't understand what Johnson is saying, but Johnson always looks at him with a kind smile and Bitty can't help liking him for that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cost of Emotion

**Author's Note:**

> crossposting from [tumblr](http://omgpbandj.tumblr.com/post/149403517052/heres-nearly-2k-of-bittyjohnson-because-obviously) because the tag was painfully empty!! anyway somehow I got dragged way more into bittyjohnson than I expected to be whooooops

Bitty sneaks into the Haus midday to make a pie. He’s not sure he’d even call it sneaking anymore per se, since everyone seems so receptive to his baking, and anyway Shitty had told them during the tour that they could come around any time. So he prepares his pie, and as he’s shutting Betsy’s door and setting his timer, he hears the front door open and shut.

“Hi,” Bitty turns around to find Johnson, looking at him with an amused expression. “Uhm—is something funny?”

“Not especially,” Johnson shrugs, then heads toward the den.

Bitty follows after a moment, because Johnson seems to be the only other person in the Haus right now, and it’d be nice to have company. “How are your classes?” he asks, for lack of a better topic.

“Same old. You know,” Johnson says, sitting on the filthy couch. “It’s all old news for me.”

“Right, you’re a senior,” Bitty nods. Wrinkling his nose at the couch, he nonetheless takes a seat on the opposite end from Johnson—at least Shitty’s not here to make fun of him for going back on his vow of a couple days ago to  _never sit on that Goddamned thing,_ ever _!_

“Hmm. You’re not supposed to remember that,” Johnson blinks at him, and Bitty has no idea what the hell he’s talking about.

To hide his confusion, casts his eyes rapidly around the room—ah, there’s the remote. “Wanna watch TV?”

“Sure.”

Bitty grabs for the remote, turning it on and flicking it through a couple of channels. “Anything in particular?”

“We can watch what you want.”

“Okay,” Bitty murmurs, settling on a baking show that he thinks is particularly ridiculous.

They sit there until Bitty’s pie is done, and Bitty chatters throughout the show, pointing out things he finds amusing. At one point near the end, he makes a joke.

And though Johnson hasn’t said much, just nodding along with everything Bitty had been saying, he cracks a very, very small smile at the punchline.

xXx

It becomes a thing that they do, him and Johnson. Bitty comes to bake a pie between his classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then Johnson comes in and they sit together on the couch, usually with the TV on. Bitty finds that he’s honestly enjoying the company—Johnson’s the quietest in the Haus besides Jack, who’s quiet in a prickly sort of way, and Johnson also doesn’t talk about things that are quite as inherently sexual as some of the rest of the guys. That’s something Bitty’s a little glad for—not that he doesn’t  _want_  to talk about sex, but, well, the guys don’t know he’s gay, so that makes it a little hard.

Slowly, Johnson seems to warm up to him. He doesn’t often talk about himself, but sometimes he mentions funny things his professors had said or reminds Bitty to do his homework. Either way, he always listens avidly whenever Bitty talks, so Bitty lets himself ramble on about all sorts of things. Sometimes Johnson makes weird comments, but Bitty quickly grows used to it—sometimes they even sort of make sense. Not to mention Johnson is  _really_  attractive—his features are unremarkable on their own, but they’re arranged on his face in a way that looks nearly symmetrical—none of his proportions are skewed. Bitty wonders how he’d never noticed the handsomeness of the face behind the goalie mask until now. Well—not that Bitty could do anything about it, but Johnson is still nice to look at.

Bitty comes out to Shitty on a cold winter morning the week before the Screw. He’s still ecstatic about it later that day, and so when he plops down on the couch next to Johnson after putting his pie in the oven, the first words out of his mouth are, “I’m gay.”

Johnson—doesn’t look surprised. “Thank you for telling me,” he says with a soft smile.

“Did—was it obvious?” Bitty worries at his lip.

“Um—“ Johnson says, and it’s the first time Bitty’s ever heard him sound nervous. “You never really talk about girls,” he says slowly.

Bitty nods, because that’s true enough, but slowly something in Johnson’s gaze shifts into confusion. “Is it—you’re okay with that, right?” Bitty suddenly feels worried.

But Johnson’s eyes widen immediately. “Of course I’m okay with it! That’s how it’s supposed to be—I mean. That’s really all right. Good, even.”

“Okaaay,” Bitty draws the syllable out, feeling off-kilter. “Um. Would you mind if I hugged you?”

An honest-to-goodness flush appears on Johnson’s face. “I guess that would be all right,” he leans forward, and Bitty slips his arms around him in a hug that’s significantly less bro-y than he’d expected.

xXx

Two days later, they’re sitting on the couch, and Johnson suddenly stops talking mid-sentence about a homework assignment he’d been annoyed with.

Bitty furrows his brow. “What’s wrong?”

“I—“ Johnson starts, then stops. Sighing, he rests his head on his chin in a display of more emotion than Bitty has ever seen on his face. “I’m having trouble.”

“With what? The homework?” Bitty shifts over to pat him on the back, and Johnson flinches. “Shoot—sorry, I shouldn’t have—“ Bitty pulls his hand away.

“It’s okay,” Johnson breathes out. “It’s not the homework. Sometimes—sometimes I have trouble distinguishing between what I want and what’s needed of me.”

That’s an interesting way to phrase things, and Bitty tilts his head. “Why should that matter so much?”

Johnson sighs heavily. “I don’t want to mess up.”

“Aww, honey. People mess up all the time,” Bitty tells him. He wants to pat him on the back again, but Johnson had flinched the last time, so Bitty keeps his hand at his side even though his fingers itch to return to Johnson’s shoulder. He forces himself to look away before he starts flushing—he might just have developed a small crush on Johnson over the recent weeks, but that doesn’t mean anything’s changed.

“Yes, but—not me. I can’t,” Johnson looks even more dismal.

“What’re you so worried about?” Bitty murmurs. Sure, he knows perfectionism isn’t always logical, but he really wants to try and help anyway because Johnson looks so  _sad_.

“I can’t tell you,” Johnson turns away, staring at the TV screen. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, sweetheart,” Bitty says quietly. “But you can talk about it whenever you need to, all right?”

Johnson mumbles something like  _I wish I could_  and lapses into silence.

Minutes later, Bitty’s timer rings. He gets up and takes his pie out of the oven, sliding it onto a cooling rack before heading back to the den. Johnson looks up when he enters the room, face sliding into a small smile, and Bitty’s heart flutters a little bit even though it doesn’t  _mean_  anything, they’re just  _friends_ —

But then Johnson’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he says, “I just realized—wow.”

“What?” Bitty asks him, sitting right next to him on the couch. “Did something happen?”

“I—maybe,” Johnson says. “This part is a little blurry. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Bitty reaches up and touches his shoulder without thinking, then hurriedly pulls it back—but this time, Johnson doesn’t flinch.

“You can—do that again?” Johnson says slowly.

“Um—okay,” Bitty says, and then tentatively, he rests his hand on Johnson’s arm.

Johnson actually grins. “This is okay.”

“Um, yes?” Bitty says, laughing softly—he adjusts himself so he’s more comfortable on the couch, heart pounding, and it brings him just a little bit closer to Johnson’s mouth. “Should I stop?”

Johnson’s grin doesn’t fade. “Keep going.”

Bitty’s suddenly nervous, but—well. Hopefully Johnson knows where this is leading, because Johnson seems to know where  _everything’s_  leading so maybe this will be the same. And if that’s the case, he would’ve said no if he didn’t want it, right?

So Bitty leans forward until they’re breathing the same air. Johnson doesn’t pull away—instead he slides his hand onto Bitty’s waist, and Bitty shivers. And then one of them moves, or both—Bitty doesn’t know, just that the gap between them is suddenly closed and Johnson’s lips are moving softly against his. He pulls back, breathless, and says, “This is okay, right?”

Johnson nods. “It’d be good for you to get a little experience,” he says very seriously, and it almost sounds like a chirp except for the sincerity in his eyes.

“All right, then,” Bitty laughs, feeling bubbly and warm. Then he kisses him again, and this time it’s open mouthed, the slow slide of tongue shaking him to the core. He fists his hand in Johnson’s t-shirt and kisses harder, because he might just want this to go farther and he’s not sure if Johnson’s on board—Johnson freezes.

“Um,” he says, pulling slightly back.

Bitty blushes to the roots of his hair. “Fuck, sorry—I? I’m so sorry,” he babbles.

Johnson’s eyes flick to the TV, where it’s playing the same baking show they watch all the time, and his face hardens into resolve. “Actually, you know what? It’s okay,” he says, turning back to Bitty. This time, he’s the one to pull Bitty forward and slide their lips together.

And Bitty gets more than a little experience from that encounter—he learns the way it feels when someone else is hard in his hand, learns the way it feels to come with a mouth around him, learns that exhibitionism is maybe something he likes because the boys could’ve come in at any moment. They didn't, of course, but it sets Bitty's blood rushing all the same, and he's clinging to Johnson as Johnson looks at him more intensely than Bitty would have ever expected.

Afterwards, as Bitty leans against him in the afterglow, Johnson gives him a sad smile. “That—that can’t happen again.”

Bitty had a feeling that’s what he would say. “It’s okay,” he sighs, even though he’s a tiny bit heartbroken.

But Johnson leans forward and hugs him, scent now familiar in Bitty’s lungs, and Bitty feels a little better. “I liked it, though,” Johnson says softly. “I don’t get to do things I like all that often.”

“Oh, honey,” Bitty grips him a little tighter. “I liked it too.”

xXx

Johnson visits for Shitty and Jack’s graduation. Bitty only talks to him once. He finds him in the den while everyone’s milling around the Haus for the main event, leaning against the wall and staring at the couch.

“Hi,” Bitty says, and for a second he feels like he’s back in his freshman year, in the calm silence of Johnson’s presence. It’s in vast contrast to how he feels now, three seconds away from crying at any moment because Shitty, and  _Jack_ , they’re  _leaving_ —

“You were supposed to get rid of that couch,” Johnson says, and the oddness of it startles a bubble of laughter from Bitty’s lungs.

“It’s hideous, isn’t it?” he chuckles.

He’s not going to say that he’d thought very seriously about burning it, but he’d felt too sentimental when the time came.

“I was really worried,” Johnson says eventually. “But—this isn’t too bad of an outcome.”

Over Johnson’s shoulder, Bitty glimpses Jack walking through the hallway. Jack gives him a small smile and a wave as he passes, and Bitty puts a hand up and waves back. “No,” he grins, turning back to Johnson. “I’d say it isn’t.”


End file.
